1 October 2011
I must say it’s good to have ‘my lovely’ back in charge as, no matter how good are the carerse, and they really are good, no one understands me or my needs better than her.
This fantastic weather continues. Something in the order of 10° above the norm for the time of year. In fact, yesterday Cambridge was the hottest spot in the British Isles at 25.2 C just 0.2C short of an all-time record which may well be broken today. I took advantage of it and spent a couple of hours taking the sun in the garden chaperoned by one of our neighbours from across the road, Joy Barrow, as none of our normal friends were available.Â
Joy and her husband Brian,, who had been in Claverimg almost as long as we have, are the most extraordinary couple. Certainly in their late 70s and they still ride round all over Europe and Russia and places like that on Tony’s motorbike.
Joy is a real livewire and into everything in the village she is a leading light in our Neighbourhood Watch and organises a nice little party in the village at Christmas for all the neighbours to meet each other whereas they may not even recognise themselves and then met in the street. I think she’s part of the historical society who have, over the past few years interviewed some of the older characters about what life was like when they were young Joy very kindly brought with her the latest product of the historic Society which was an interview with George Barker. A 97-year-old resident who’d spent most of his life living and working in and around Claving. She very kindly read it out to me. while we both sat in the garden, on another lovely day,, knowing that I find it almost impossible to handle paper it was a very kind gesture and and extremely interesting interview. Having been in the village ourselves almost 50 years many of the references to people and places were familiar to us and made us realise the changes that have taken place over that half-century
Talk about enjoying your old age. They Barrows are an example to us all and when you think some people in this country going to a retirement home the age of 55, what earth can they be thinking of.?
Incidentally, in the event today’s temperature was lower than yesterday’s so did not break all-time records.
The Rugby World Series continues in New Zealand and England scraped through, into the quarter-finals, against Scotland. As World Champions, having won the last series a couple of years ago, I think they will be very lucky to get past these quarter-finals, certainly on their present form.